This invention relates to a tool and method for permitting a materials handling lift truck having standard load handling forks mounted on the front thereof to pick up and handle a load of individual articles stacked atop a slipsheet pallet while the pallet and load are resting directly on a floor with no intervening spacing structure separating the bottom of the slipsheet from the floor.
Slipsheet pallets have gained susbtantial favor in the materials handling industry in recent years because of their economy, lightness and lack of bulk as opposed to wood or metal pallets. The slipsheet pallet normally comprises a thick but flexible sheet of fibrous material having an upwardly bent tab at an edge thereof. Such slipsheets have been designed to be handled by specially equipped forklift trucks having a so-called "push-pull" attachment mounted on the front thereof, such attachment having a remotely controlled retractible clamp for grasping the upturned slipsheet tab and pulling the sheet and thus the load rearwardly and upwardly onto the forwardly extending forks of the truck. Discharge of the load from the forks is accomplished by an extensible push frame which engages the rear of the load and pushes the load and slipsheet forwardly off of the forks when the load is to be deposited.
Such special "push-pull" attachments are sufficiently expensive, and substract sufficiently from the load-carrying capacity of the truck by adding weight to the forward end thereof, that the large majority of forklift trucks presently in operation are not so equipped, but rather are merely equipped with a pair of standard forwardly extending load handling forks (sometimes referred to as "load arms"). When such trucks attempt to handle loads of articles stacked atop slipsheets without a wood or metal pallet being place beneath the slipsheet to provide a space between the floor and the slipsheet into which the forks may be inserted, the truck operator finds that he is unable to insert his forks beneath the load between the slipsheet and the floor and is therefore unable to lift and carry the load. This problem has limited the usage of slipsheet pallets and impaired the space, weight and cost savings which might otherwise be obtainable in the materials handling industry by a more widespread use of such slipsheets.
Accordingly a need exists for a simple tool, which is much less expensive and less complicated than conventional motorized push-pull attachments and causes no impairment of the load lifting capability of the lift truck, for permitting lift trucks having standard load handling forks to operatively pick up and carry loads of articles stacked atop slipsheets where the slipsheets are in direct supportive contact with the floor.